


The Ghost and Mr. Unwin

by LadyEmrys



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: F/M, Ghost and Mrs Muir au, I know, I swear, M/M, but its gonna be so cute, its gonna hurt, its such a good film.very brief mention of character death, not a word, not too harrowing I promise, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:52:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5886667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyEmrys/pseuds/LadyEmrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is indeed a 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' au - and if you've never seen the film I would encourage it. It's utterly delightful, and features the delicious Rex Harrsion alongside the incredible Gene Tierney. </p><p>Gary - Eggsy to his friends and sister - Unwin has torn himself from the stress of early 20th century London life, taking what remains of his mother's fortune and relocating himself and his sister to a seaside town in Cornwall. Accompanied by Roxy, his diligent, long-suffering housekeeper, he rents an unassuming cottage by the coast, only to discover that its previous owner - a foulmouthed, surly, yet gentlemanly sea captain - refuses to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost and Mr. Unwin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nickygp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nickygp/gifts).



The pale grey light strained to shine between the break in the opposite terrace as it filtered through lace curtains. Flecks of late autumnal sunset dappled the carpeted floor and swept across the folds and creases in a stiff, black skirt, draped elegantly over an immaculate cream chair in stark contrast, as the wearer shook her head as emphatically as her aging bones would allow.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving us.”

“I can’t believe he hasn’t left already,” murmured an equally stiff, black figure, standing just beyond her sister’s shoulder.

“ _Oh, do be quiet, Violet_ ,” hissed the first, craning her neck to scold the sharp silhouette. The figure raised a brow and snapped her crooked fingers, the crisp sound summoning the swift entrance of a servant in white, her loose chestnut hair falling into her eyes as she darted around the room, lighting lamps and drawing curtains.

As she tugged the last heavy drape across its window she nodded to the two ladies in their stiff, black skirts, and shuffled past the third figure in the room, sparing a glance at his exasperated expression, and offering what comfort she could with a quick wink.

The young man dipped his head in thanks - a silent promise to find her later – and lowered himself onto the cushion of a sofa that felt to him as starched and stiff as his aunts looked.

“I am sorry, Aunts, to have not made arrangements sooner – I feel as if I’ve imposed on your gracious hospitality for longer than I had any right to.”

The frail woman in the chair lifted her hand to shoo the air in front of her face, shaking her head as she dropped her thin arm back into her lap. “Nonsense, dear boy, you are Michelle’s son – why, we would be quite happy for you to stay here. Indefinitely.”

“ _Indefinitely_?” shrieked Violet, as the man fought the persistent twitch tugging at his lips. He caught his grin in time, as the elder of the two withered sisters turned to face him with an assessing look in her clouded eyes.

“You wouldn’t want to stay any longer, would you?”

“Of course not, Aunt Violet, Sophia and I will be leaving in the morning. It’s already settled, Aunt Imogen –” he raised a pacifying hand in her direction, trying not to laugh as she sputtered, grey eyes bugging with the effort of containing her protest – “so there’s no sense in arguing about it now.”

“You see?” Violet crowed, triumphant, at her younger sister, before lowering her voice to a mutter. “At least the boy has a sense of propriety.”

He sensed the incoming tide of another petty fight, and hastily retreated to the stairs lest he be crushed under the waves of resentment and regret, the former pickling every word that dripped from Violet’s mouth, and the latter preying on every thought circling Imogen’s head.

One had hated his mother very much, and the other had let her get away with it, until their much younger sister was dead and all that was left was a memory to cling to.

A memory, and her two children, of course.

“Gary?” piped a small voice from the upper landing. The blonde turned to look up, and found a pair of bright blue eyes peering at him through the dark railings. He craned his head at the drawing room again, straining to see that the two older women were suitably occupied with hating each other, and jogged up the stairs to take his place at her side.

He recalled sitting in the very same spot as a child himself, watching the evening post delivering the news of his father’s death. His mother wept on the marble entrance hall, refusing to be tugged by either sister or servant, until she cried herself pale and sick. She wilted without him, surviving him by only ten years, before succumbing to her feverish heart and leaving behind her son and daughter.

He turned to his sister, tucking a lock of hair – their mother’s colouring – behind her ear.

“S’alright pet, we’re alone now – none o’that Gary lark,” he assured her kindly, a crooked grin pulling at his lips as he toyed with the bright ribbon she’d tied around a misshapen plat.

_He’d ask Roxy to help him fix it for her later._

“Eggsy,” she smiled, reaching out to prod his shoulder. He returned her smile with a nudge of his own, and threaded his hands through the gaps in the bannister, curling his fingers around the polished mahogany and wondering how long it would be until he saw the dark wooden hallway again. 

He was peering at the faint, white score marks in the wood near the kitchen staircase – remnants of the discreetly destructive nature of his early teenage self – when his sister reached her tiny hand through the bannister to clasp his own. He turned to look at her as her tongue struggled around a question.

Sophia sighed, levelling him with a strangely heavy look for someone so young. “Why do you talk so funny around Aunt Imogen and Aunt Violet?”

He rolled his shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Because that’s how they like me to talk, precious, an’ I ain’t too keen to start a fight.”

The little girl to his left nodded sagely, and frowned, squinting up at him through cautious eyes. “You mean I should stop making them fight?”

Eggsy grinned. “You said it, love, not me.”

The two were quiet for a moment - huddled together on the stairs while the shrill squawking of the older women below drifted through the open doorway and up to the landing – until Sophia broke the silence with a soft whisper, almost too quiet for Eggsy to hear.  

“But it worked.”

“Hmm?”

She startled, surprised he’d heard her at all, and turned to him with a guilty, yet honest, smile. “They got tired of me, and now I get to come live with you.”

She stated it with the simple honesty that children alone seemed to possess, laced with a quiet satisfaction at a job well done. Her brother regarded her with a raised brow, and at his silence, she flashed a sheepish grin, and shuffled closer to him.

“Roxy said it was a bad plan,” she admitted.

Eggsy sighed, resisting the urge to rub at the increasingly painful prickling in his temple. “Roxy’s right,” he murmured, glancing at the faint, rectangular crack in the wood paneling that signaled the presence of the servants’ door. “In fact, Roxy’s usually right - you should listen to Roxy, it’ll save you the embarrassment of havin’ to admit you’re wrong later.”

His face was drawn, tight and serious, and he didn’t turn to look at her, but the mischievous twinkle in his eye – just visible in the low candle light – eased his sister’s guilty conscience. Her brother was a gentleman now, and far too old to share her games in their Aunt’s company, and far too busy to come to nursery as often as he used to.  

_Too old to take part in her antics, but never too old to enjoy them._

She followed his line of sight towards the door. “Is Roxy coming to live with us?”

“Course she is, unless you fancy chokin’ down your big brother’s cookin’.”

A sudden, childish horror flashed through her eyes as her face fell into an expression of grave severity.

“I’d rather starve.”

Eggsy did laugh then, low and restrained, checking the open door to make sure he hadn’t been heard. “Thanks,” he grinned, elbowing her soft side and earning a sharp prod in the neck in retaliation.

Sophia regarded her brother with a frown. “We’re going very far away, aren’t we?”

“We are indeed. In fact, we’re going so far away, you won’t be able to see it through your bedroom window.”

Sophia’s eyes grew wide as she struggled to understand the possibility.

Her room was the highest in the house, at her insistence, and from its sill she could sit and watch all of London flurry beneath her. She could see for miles, to the farthest reaches of the city, where the streets melted into wide roads and buildings crumbled into neat hedgerows and sprawling farms. In all her life she’d never been able to imagine anything beyond her view from that window, and the prospect of further discovery was enough to soften the blow of dragging her halfway across the country.

Eggsy’s face softened into an indulgent smile as he carded his fingers through her fringe, bending at the waist to whisper into her ear. “But let’s try an’ leave on a good note, eh? Be nice to Aunts Violet and Imogen tomorrow.”

The little girl nodded so solemnly that Eggsy had to laugh, and as the two fell into a comfortable silence once more, they wrapped their hands around the railings, and each other, and listened one last time to shrill cries of the powdered ladies below.

Hours later, when the rest of the house was quiet at last - and Eggsy had made sure that what remained of their luggage was waiting in the hall - he crept down the servants’ stairs to the kitchen to make himself some tea.

He was none too surprised to find Roxy awake, and with a steaming cup waiting for him opposite her own.

“Heard you on the stairs,” she nodded, pointing with her chin towards the still open door, and grinning as he doubled back to close it. He settled across the table from her with a heavy sigh, slumping into the cold wooden bench, and reaching to wrap his fingers around the delicate floral china – an off cast from the finer pieces above, and gifted to Roxy as an entire set when his mother died.

She used them as regularly as one would use an ordinary service, and it infuriated his aunts beyond reason.

_He supposed that’s why she did it._

“Am I doin’ the right thing, Rox? Takin’ her away from them?”

The brunette tilted her head, delicately blowing across the surface of her tea, and snorted after taking a sip. “Violet’s so rotten it’ll spoil whatever childhood she has left, and Imogen’ll just spoil her rotten,” she answered honestly with a shrug.

Eggsy into his almost empty cup and frowned at the specks he found floating in the dregs.  He drained the last, chasing the bitter tang of leaves across the inside of his teeth.

The clatter of the empty cup on the saucer echoed in the room, and as he pulled his gaze from the brown ring forming in the bottom of the cup, he glanced up to find Roxy watching him expectantly.

“I am doing the right thing,” he stated, internally relived to find that he sounded more sure aloud than he did in his own head.

His friend finished her own tea, wincing at the deposit of sugar she tasted at the bottom, and rose to clear the mess.

“There’s a boy. Now, go on, _scoot_ \- we’ve a long day ahead tomorrow, won’t reach Cornwall till well after lunch, an’ then there’s the house to sort – which I can’t believe you’ve not done already –” with a private grin she ignored his protested _‘I’m meeting with the land agent when we get there!’_ – “and the luggage and Lord knows what state the house will even be in….are you sure you want to do it by yourself?”

Eggsy too had risen to straighten his jacket, tugging absently at his cuffs as he wandered to the doorway. “Are you sure you trust me to?”

Though he did his best to hide it, she caught the sudden insecurity plaguing his tired eyes, and huffed.

_Never let it be said she let the infuriating man doubt himself._

“'Course I trust you. I’ve always wanted to live by the sea,” she muttered with a cursory look over her shoulder, as she stood and rinsed the last of the dishes she ever would at that particular sink.

As Eggsy reached for the door handle, he turned and wished her goodnight with a wink and softly uttered, “Me too.”

The first rays of daylight shone through the high, open door as Eggsy finished loading his last case into the back of the car that was to carry them through the vivacious bustle of London’s early morning, and to the station at its heart.

Bitter farewells were offered by one aunt, and curt goodbyes bitterly by another – when she stopped complaining about the loss of a servant long enough to remember to say anything to them at all.

On the train, Roxy curled up on the seat - reading a book she’d no doubt pilfered from the library, though it wasn’t like his aunts even knew where that was.

Books were an abhorrent thing to them - their husbands’, and his father’s, collective works of science and adventure being far too indelicate for their tastes - but he knew Roxy had a taste for botany, and he smiled privately as he thought of the stash of those that had belonged to his father that he himself had taken before leaving.

They arrived at the indiscriminate station – hardly more than a blip on the train’s route – just as Roxy predicted, well after lunch, and just ten minutes before Eggsy was due to meet the land agent.

As he squinted into the hazy afternoon sunshine, thick with the salted fog rising from just over a crest of dunes beyond the station grounds, Eggsy fished a note from his pocket and thrust into Roxy’s waiting hands. They parted on the platform – his girls toddling off to a little teashop by the docks, as he paid the porter to store the luggage for the time being, and with the stout man’s frankly terrible instruction, headed up the street in what he hoped was the direction of the Agent.

Eggsy found it after consulting a far more reliable source, and as he staggered under the weight of the heavy, wooden door, mothballs and dust assaulted his nose upon his ducking into the shopfront.  

He fought the urge to sneeze on the man that offered his hand.

The next ten minutes were dutifully spent pouring over, and scrutinising listings and advertisements with a growing sense of dread that he’d made a terrible mistake. All the houses were far too expensive.

But before he could indulge himself in suffocating under the weight of his guilt, something at the bottom of the pile of listing caught his careful eye.

“Gull Cottage?” he murmured to himself as he scanned the specifics of the listing, only to startle in shock as the paper was wrenched from his grasp. His gaze shot up to find the agent smoothing the wrinkled sheet on the table and shaking his head.

“No. No, no - that will not do Sir, not at all. Have you seen this?”

As the man tried to push another yellowing page under his nose, Eggsy frowned and reached out for the paper again, but the agent got to it first and held it out of reach.

The younger man was fast growing tired of his ridiculous behaviour. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The other man began to shake, a fine sheen of sweat beading his brow as he glanced between Eggsy’s impatient frown and the paper in his clammy hands. “I’m afraid I can’t rent this house to you sir.”

Eggsy’s eyes hardened as he grasped the other end of the page and began tugging insistently.

“Why not, it’s exactly what I need, it’s close by-”

“Its simply out of the question-”

“-the rent is reasonable, it’s only fifty-two pounds a year-”

“-quite unsuitable, I really must insist-”

With a final pull, Eggsy came out the victor in the impromptu tug-o’-war, clutching the page close to his chest as he seethed. “And I _really_ must insist that you stop this nonsense and show me the house. If you are so _very_ unwilling, then I’m sure I can find another agent – you aren’t the only one in this street, let alone the whole town.”

Hearing the truth of the matter so plainly laid before him, the agent deflated, and began to hurriedly stuff sheets of paper into his fraying brief case.

“Yes, sir, right away sir.”

After an unbearably tense march to a waiting car, Eggsy was beginning to rethink his eagerness to see the cottage if it meant having to sit by the jittering agent for the entire drive over. But as they pulled away from the dock, and screeching of gulls and fishermen alike, Eggsy began to sit straighter, smile wider, and breathe deeper.

The salted sea air rose to greet them as they puttered along the coast, a blinding sheen of light dancing across the still horizon to his right, as the road curved with the cliffs to his left. A stony beach bled from the dunes to greet the sea with a pale, grey kiss, and in the distance, the dock and its fishing boats glistened in the afternoon sun.

The drive did wonders to calm Eggsy’s fraying temper by the time they pulled up to an impressive white building nestled between the cliffs and the shore, it’s façade claimed by dark blanket of ivy, and weathered by the sea air. Though the whitewashed walls were fading, and the windows seemed a little grey, the door had very recently been painted a pleasant blue, and Eggsy was sure similar treatment would lift the rest of the house.

If only he could shake the agitation rolling off the agent like the waves crashing behind them.

He felt his anger bristle beneath his skin as he very nearly had to shoulder his way past the agent who crowded the doorway, and stormed into the hallway. He skidded to a halt as he peered through the darkness. It was far grander than the modest title of ‘cottage’ would suggest.

The staircase easily twice the width of his mother’s in London, and after months of living with lavender salts permeating every breath he took, Eggsy found the distinct lack of cream or lace anything to be a great comfort indeed. His footsteps echoed around him, filling every room and calling the house back to life under his feet.

The largest room he could see was already open, its door lying against the wall, and as he squinted into the gloom he saw only a portrait in the shaft of light pouring in through the window.

He was struck dumb in the doorway. The face staring back at him send an uncomfortable spike of _something_ curling around his stomach, the kind of feeling he usually confined to privately arranged meeting with likeminded gentlemen in hotels renowned for their discretion, if one was only willing to offer enough for their silence.

Eggsy allowed himself to be pinned beneath the dark eyes for a moment longer, before he flinched at the feeling of a strange warmth on his neck – akin to a gentle brush of fingertips along the soft hairs at his nape. He was sure the agent had caught him staring.

He shook himself out of his peculiar stupor, and turned on his heel to find the man halfway across the hall, peering dubiously at a crooked painting of a ship and it’s neighbour, and the dozen or so others decorating the hallway.

“The lavatory?” Eggsy enquired absently, still spellbound by the portrait’s gaze.

“Two of them Sir, and both inside - one on the first floor, and the other just through there.”

Eggsy turned to see the door he was pointing at, and gave the handle a turn. The door swung open with a painful creak, and the blonde was entirely unprepared for the pair of glassy eyes that glared at him, affronted, through the darkness.

“That’s a dog.”

The frantic agent appeared behind him. “Yes the previous owner was a….strange fellow.”

“That’s a dead dog. In a toilet.”

“Yes Sir, I did warn you that it was entirely unsuitable-“

Eggsy held up a hand to avoid returning to the familiar argument. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t take it, just gimme a minute to get over…that.”

As the agent led him to the stairs, Eggsy felt another peculiar tingle creeping along the back of his neck, compelling him to turn back to the toilet. He stiffened to find the door now closed.

_He was sure he left it open._

Above him, already on the second landing, the agent’s voice distracted him, and as he placed his weight on the first step, the creaking wood sounded far too much like a dark chuckle in his ear.

Eggsy shivered under the weight of unknown scrutiny as he made his way upstairs, though he couldn’t be sure if it was from the sudden drop in temperature, or the hundreds of eyes glinting at him from behind glass frames. Insects of every shape and size line the walls, but Eggsy was determined not to let his discomfort show.

They arrived at the master bedroom, and as Eggsy stepped into the surprisingly masculine space, his eyes were drawn to an exquisite golden telescope, suspiciously cleaner than the rest of the house.

“Why’s this clean?” he demanded of the man who seemed too afraid to venture any further than the doorway.

“What?”

Eggsy sighed, feeling the return of his headache poking behind his eyes. “If nobody’s been living here, then why’s this clean when everything else is covered in dust?”

As the now terrified agent was fumbling past his heavy tongue, a sudden peal of disembodied, manic laughter tore through the room, sending Eggsy reeling back in shock from where he’d been fiddling with the telescope.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Eggsy and the agent fled the house in a panic, almost falling through the front door that slammed forcefully shut on their heels. The agent fumbled with the keys, his skin as white as the sea’s foam, fingers shaking so badly he cursed himself and the house.

“This house will drive me to drink!”

Eggsy was standing back from the door, wide eyes frantically scanning the windows for any sign of life, as his hands shook where the hung limply by his side. He struggled to work his lips around anything other than a panicked wheeze, voice catching in his throat until it exploded from him in one long, incredulous whine.

“ _The fuck was that?_ ” he shrieked, the first and only thought he was able to voice.

The agent didn’t blanch at the language as he sprinted from the door, and grasped the hem of Eggsy’s coat, trying to pull the blonde down the path and back through the rusting iron gate. “I tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen!” he cried.

Eggsy grabbed the man’s shaking hands, a foreboding dread coiling in his chest as he forced the older man to look him in the eye. “ _What was that_?”

“The ghost,” squeaked the agent, swallowing around a high noise in his throat, “Its _haunted_. Five families, Sir, _five_ in the last year have been driven out by it.”

Eggsy barely heard the rest of the sentence, so caught was he by the word ‘ _ghost.’_ In a daze he peered back at the house, heart hammering in his chest in time to the rush of blood coursing through his head. “Fascinating,” he breathed in wonder.

If it were possible, the agent grew even paler as he stilled in his attempts to bodily drag Eggsy away.

“ _What_?” he hissed.

Eggsy's hesitation lasted for a scant few seconds, eyes drawn to the door and the latch he was surely imagining to be rattling.

 _It’s only the wind –_ he told himself, unable to shake the thrill of the idea that it was something more. Unbidden, the memory of fingers on his neck returned, the low, lusty chuckle breathed so intimately in his ear, so close to his skin that he was sure he could feel a tickle of lips against him.

_That laugh._

“I’ll take it.”

At the wild, unabashed glee in the younger man’s face, the poor land agent heaved a breath and looked as though he were about to faint.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know I'm trash you don't have to tell me. 
> 
> Hit me up at [trashbagauthor](http://trashbagauthor.tumblr.com/) if you fancy updates about this fic verse, my other fics, and some original work of my own!


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